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Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 11.5%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 6.9%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Vagner Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced data security with seamless integration and static website capabilities
S3 is a great service offering numerous possibilities. It allows for storing objects and files of various types. I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB. Despite being focused on security, I leverage features such as cryptography and integration with CloudTrail.
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution
The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is easy to use for anyone with minimal technical knowledge."
"Amazon S3 has multiple types of data detection. You can store data on a monthly basis, yearly basis, and long term basis."
"Great for storing all types of data."
"The most valuable features are VNet, virtual machines, and Elastic Kubernetes Service."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon S3 is its flexibility as a solution to suit many different use cases."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon S3 for me is static deployment; it doesn't charge much, and I can integrate CloudFront for DNS and routing. It is very useful and affordable."
"We have cold storage here, and I think that's useful. When it comes to commercialization, it's cheaper to put data that you won't be using into the data storage. You only use a little bit of the data needed each day for your transition, so you pay less."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its security, as it does not provide public access."
"One of the most valuable features is its similarity to the physical app, which makes it familiar. It's almost identical to a real NetApp, which means you can run all of the associated NetApp processes and services with it. Otherwise, we would definitely have to deploy some hardware on a site somewhere, which could be a challenge in terms of CapEx."
"The FlexClones make all the management easier for us."
"The ability for our users to restore data from the Snapshots is very valuable."
"The stability has been really good."
"The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."
"ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."
"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product."
 

Cons

"Amazon S3 could improve the limitation on how much data can be stored."
"The service could improve by offering mobile backups, which would be great since using Google Backup is costly."
"Amazon S3 could improve the load balancers. They are very basic compared to other solutions in the industry, such as F5. It has to be able to be analyzed up to a certain level."
"When we need to find the queries there is no user interface, it is the only textual format that is bulky. If we need some data we will use Athena for queries and we will get results. When comparing this solution to others, such as DataDog, they provide a wonderful UI, and user-friendly dashboards, and many other features that this solution is lacking."
"There's a lot of complexity."
"Amazon S3 could improve the performance reports. It would be a benefit if they were more comprehensive."
"Sometimes, there is latency in getting data, especially if the file size is large. This could be improved."
"We need the mapping to Windows. That feature is needed in S3. That feature is in the Azure cloud where we can map it like a drive. We can map the cloud storage to the effort driving our Windows PC. But Amazon is not providing that feature for the S3 solution."
"The data tiering needs improvement. E.g., moving hard data to faster disks."
"Multipathing for iSCSI LUNs is difficult to deal with from the client-side and I'd love to see a single entry point that can be moved around within the cluster to simplify the client configuration."
"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP needs to have customizable pricing options such as 10 TB increments. They seem to have only two options: 10 TB or 250 TB."
"The navigation on some of the configuration parameters is a bit cumbersome, making the learning curve on functions somewhat steep."
"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."
"The support is good in general but the initial, front-line support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support."
"The only area for improvement would be some guidance in terms of the future products that NetApp is planning on releasing. I would like to see communication around that or advice such as, "Hey, the world is moving towards this particular trend, and NetApp can help you do that." I do get promotional emails from NetApp, but customer-specific advice would be helpful, based on our use cases."
"Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license of Amazon S3 is based on volume, capacity, and time. The overall price of the solution could improve. The support has to be added if you want it at an additional cost."
"This solution has reasonable pricing and a low cost."
"One can manage the price of the tool. The tool is worth the money if we want to store the data in Amazon S3."
"The licensing is pay as you go, and I'm happy with the pricing."
"I have seen the pricing on AWS, but I believe it's a discount price for organizations."
"The pricing can be improved."
"Amazon S3 is a cost-effective solution compared to the others."
"The tool is not too expensive considering the various pros."
"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."
"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."
"For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA."
"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."
"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."
"For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time."
"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."
"They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
75%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
2%
Educational Organization
49%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?
We can easily connect to the AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon S3?
S3 is a pay-as-you-go service. I pay based on the data volume I am using.
What needs improvement with Amazon S3?
There is a limitation with the data upload size, such as the five terabytes restriction. I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.